(NASA) – Discovery’s crew has lifted the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module from the shuttle’s payload bay, mated it to the International Space Station’s Harmony module, and is ready to begin unpacking the 21-foot-long, 15-foot-wide moving van.

Leonardo is delivering 8 tons of cargo, including four experiment racks and the last crew quarters to be delivered to the station. This is Leonardo’s final round-trip to the station. When it returns on STS-133 it will remain as an extra room.

This nadir, 800mm view of the portside top part of Discovery's cabin was provided by one of the Expedition 23 crew members aboard the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA

On the first full day of joint docked operations the astronauts on space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station unberthed Leonardo and maneuvered it into place for installation on Harmony’s nadir, or Earth-facing, port. Mission Specialists Stephanie Wilson and Naoko Yamazaki operated the station’s robotic arm to perform that operation.

Commander Alan G. Poindexter and Mission Specialists Rick Mastracchio and Wilson will discuss the mission with the Tom Joyner Syndicated Radio Show in Dallas, Texas, WVIT-TV in Hartford, Conn., and Fox News Radio. Mastracchio is from Connecticut.

Later in the day, Pilot James P. Dutton Jr. will join Anderson and Mastracchio to review procedures for the first spacewalk of the mission. Anderson and Mastracchio will end their day preparing for Friday morning’s spacewalk by camping overnight in the Quest airlock at a reduced atmospheric pressure. That will facilitate the purge of nitrogen from their bloodstreams as a measure against suffering from decompression sickness during the spacewalk.